reliable and familiar that won't break the bank.

This is why car companies are not going to offer EVs that people actually want without government intervention. I remember GM leasing EVs back in the '90s to some acclaim. But they didn't let anyone buy out their leases and they discontinued production by the end of the decade because most of their money came from service. And a bare-bones electric car has very few service requirements.

Manufacturers need the bullshit features because they need something important and breakable for consumers to come back with. Even if it's just planned obsolescence driving another purchase, like it sounds like the article's author is heading towards.

Here's the great thing about toys: they can't ask me to call them anything. I can get a Buzz Lightyear doll and call it Woody. I can build a Millennium Falcon out of plastic blocks and call it the Serenity. Since they are toys I own and not sentient beings, I am not offending them.

Absolutely this. Ever since Nolan, we've been getting grimmer, darker, more "realistic" reboots of the character as directors try to figure out what Batman would look like in the real world. Burton and Schumacher asked the much funner question of, "What kind of crazy nonsense world worships a vigilante in a furry suit?"

Oh, to be young and hot again...

Silksong feels like being thrown into the deep end

I think it feels less like a standalone game and more like high-end Hollow Knight DLC. The gameplay expects that you've already completely beaten and mastered the hardest parts of Hollow Knight, and expects you to pick up from there.

Maybe that would be fine if I'd been grinding the Godhome continuously for the past seven years. But I think most people haven't been doing that.

I was all-in on Hollow Knight. Beat it multiple times, including Path of Pain and the Nightmare King. But I'm struggling with Silksong.

I went back and started up Hollow Knight again just to sanity-check myself, and, yes, it's definitely an easier game. Many fewer enemies can hit for 2 health; there's more variety in paths in the early game, so if you hit a wall in one direction you can try another; and you get access to upgrades that actually feel impactful relatively early instead of skills that use up my magic pool that I can't spare because I need them because I'm always one hit away from dying.

My pet theory is that Silksong is actually just exactly what they originally pitched: DLC for players that have mastered the highest skill points in Hollow Knight. And maybe that would be fine if I were coming straight into it off of the back of Godhome. But it's been years since I was playing those areas, and my skills have atrophied. It's okay for a DLC to expect mastery from the start, but a standalone game should have more of a curve.

I enjoyed the first season and some of the second, but it really didn't need to run for twenty years.

I imagine jobs reports are going to be fucked for the foreseeable future.

No, the reports will be fine. They'll be excellent. Beautiful, even. They just won't be accurate. The administration has made it clear that they'd rather have good numbers than real numbers.

I think this one is getting coverage because the shooter was trans. I have a feeling a marginalized group is about to be further vilified and lose more rights.

Every day, the future looks a little bit darker. But the past... even the grimy parts of it... keep on getting brighter.

John Darnielle is my must-read list. Wolf in White Van was absolutely captivating to me when it came out. I was late reading Universal Harvester, but when I finally did, it literally made me gasp out loud at some of the most horror. And so I decided to lock in and never miss a new drop again. His last book was a day-one buy that I loved, and now I'm just waiting for him to announce something else.

I've definitely had English essays that were like, "read the short story presented below and then explain how the author used literary devices to express their purpose."